Borderlands 4's Randy Pitchford talks making 'the best Borderlands game we've ever made'

We sat down with Gearbox Software CEO, Randy Pitchford, at this year's Gamescom and discussed all things Borderlands 4.

It’d be easy to take one look at Borderlands 4and assume that very little with the franchise has changed. After all, at its core, this is still a looter shooter series that tasks groups of four friends to blast their way through the cell-shaded wasteland in the hopes of securing bigger, better, and more badass weapons and upgrades.

Dig a little deeper, though, and it really is the little nips and tucks to this format that are adding up to make a big difference to Gearbox Software’s fourth series go-around. Turning in missions no longer requires venturing back to the quest giver, for instance, while new movement abilities like double jumping and a grapple make getting around breezier than ever.

Following my one hour hands-on preview session at this year’s Gamescom I would call Borderlands 4 comfortably familiar, but on a scale that is more ambitious yet more refined at the same time. In order to learn more about how the team at developer Gearbox Software went about achieving this tricky balance, I sat down with studio president and CEO, Randy Pitchford, who was more than happy to discuss what makes 4 “the best Borderlands game” the team has ever made.

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First off, 2025 will mark 16 years since the very first Borderlands came out. How did that happen?

I don't know, man, it's fun. I hope I get to do it until I die. It's wild. I was at Gamescom here in 2008, or maybe it was 2007, and I was showing Borderlands to people for the first time. We did it here at Gamescom and no one would pay attention. To get an interview with you would have been impossible back then, because who the hell were we?

I was screaming from the tallest mountain, trying to get anyone to notice our crazy little game that a lot of people in the industry were predicting would just fail. Because what are we doing? ‘You can't put a shooter and a role-playing game together. Are you mad? ‘That's nuts! How dare you mix chocolate and peanut butter?’ They thought we were crazy. [But] it worked, and it resonated with people, and each game we've done has gotten bigger and I can't believe it.

As a studio, how hard is it to keep on coming up with new character classes for people to play as?

Oh my God, honestly, that's not hard at all. The challenge is the opposite because, gosh, just in my one single brain, [I have] more ideas and inspiration and hopes and dreams than I could ever make in a lifetime. And that's just my brain! We have a team of incredibly creative people and we are always dreaming up ideas at a much faster rate than we could ever build them.

Do you have a personal favourite from this latest batch of Vault Hunters?

When we got Vex working I was just convinced, ‘oh, we can't do better than this. This is so fun, it's so cool’. Our siren in Borderlands 4 is just badass. But with each, we have milestones where they all kind of come up, but some kind of ferment before others. And as each one sort of came into their own, I shifted. And now, I think as we launch, I'm probably going to be maining Harlowe. Oh my gosh, she's so fun, dude. She's got some crowd control ability. That's just really right for me, at least right now.

Now, it could morph. But I think right now I think Harlowe is kind of my main. And we'll see if that changes. It might change because I think my wife's going to want to play Harlowe. So when we play co-op together, I'm probably going to have to do like Rafa or Amon or something. I love Vex, but I've played so much of her. I feel like I want to explore it.

This Borderlands seems to be about making minor changes that all add up. Were these changes informed by player feedback or your own ambitions?

It's all the above. With each Borderlands game we make, we push boundaries on different parts of the game. And sometimes we go too far, you know? Because Borderlands... Like the title of the game, Borderlands isn't a place, it's an ideal. And a borderland is a place between things that don't belong. It's that weird and comfortable no man's land between stuff that shouldn't be put together, right? So it's a borderland between a roleplaying game and a shooter. And it's borderland between a drama and a comedy. It's neither and it's both somehow.

Over time, we learn how to bracket. And with the fourth game, we feel like with all things we found those boundaries. So yes, to players who have played Borderlands, there's something comfortable and familiar. And it just feels right. But at the same time, there's things you've never seen before in a Borderlands game.

We like to surprise and delight and create wonder. That, we think, is an avenue to joy and happiness when you experience what we've crafted. I feel like with Borderlands 4, we finally know what too far is with each of the key parameters of what a Borderlands game is. We've gone too far in every case with each of our games on some parameter. Now we know how to dial towards the middle.

Villains are always a big part of the Borderlands oeuvre. How is the Timekeeper different?

He's a sociopathic narcissist to the nth degree. To the point where if you were born on Kairos, he can't be comfortable unless he can see what you see and have absolute control. It's the most extreme case of like Totalitarian fascism that you can possibly imagine and it's not for fun. This is not a guy who's enjoyed… I'm not sure he's ever enjoyed anything. He is so concerned about his mortality, or I should say his immortality, that he will go to any length to preserve it.

He shrouded all of Kairos to block it off from the entire rest of the universe. No one could even see it until Lilith shattered the veil that surrounded Kairos when she saved Pandora from the Cataclysm. I'm getting into deep lore stuff, but it's all to say that the Timekeeper is a different kind of beast. You're not going to like his personality, and there's no redeeming qualities to it unless you worship the most extreme version of control and order and rigid absolutism. That you can possibly imagine. He is a horror. He's not someone to enjoy spending time with.

With Borderlands 4 releasing on Nintendo Switch 2, does it achieve full parity with other consoles?

So the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Borderlands 4 is 100% parity with all the other versions. In fact, crossplay is supported. So, if you're playing on the go with the Nintendo Switch 2, you can connect to your friends if they're on Xbox or PlayStation or even Windows PC and we can all play a co-op session together. It is full, there is no compromise in the game.

We're hitting 30fps in portable mode, not even dock mode. So it's pretty great. And to be able to use the mouse like that, with no compromise? We haven't cut any of the content down; we haven't shrunk it; we haven't deleted anything in order to make it run and feel great on a Nintendo Switch 2. It's kind of a miracle.

I think that people that have been with Switch and have a Switch 2 and know what that feels like, and maybe have played other ports, you're going to feel, ‘oh, they actually did it. This is not, they're not porting it. This is the game’. Just the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game!

Final question, I’m a big fan of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. Any plans on continuing that universe?

Oh, I feel like we're just getting started there. I love fantasy, and we have a whole team of people that love fantasy. To me, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands was a challenge and a risk, but now it's a beachhead. We've invaded Normandy. We have liberated France, baby Let's now fight the war. And I can't wait. I would bet that we are going to spend more time on that now.

We are neck deep in launching Borderlands 4. It's the only thing I can think about right now and our team is buried. I don't know how long it will be before we are able to really get into it. But when we do, if we do, remember this conversation because I'm so passionate about it. The team loved it and just wants to do more.

Borderlands 4 is set to release on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC this September 12, 2025. The Nintendo Switch 2 version will launch on October 3, 2025.